


Mountains Lose

by Estirose



Category: The Tomorrow People (1992), Zero | Project Zero | Fatal Frame Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 22:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2524751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estirose/pseuds/Estirose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to be alone. Miku and Adam both know this, and Adam tries to make things a bit better. (Set before the events of The Tomorrow People, and between games 3 and 5 of Fatal Frame. Slight spoilers as to the identity of a character from 5.)</p>
<p>For the Into A Bar challenge: Miku Hinasaki meets Adam Newman!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mountains Lose

**Author's Note:**

> As noted in the summary, this is Adam and Miku meeting. I didn't find anything in canon that would contradict Adam speaking Japanese. 
> 
> This is set around 1991-2. It's a bit of a stretch from what we know of Miku's timeline (we know something happens to her as early as that time period), but I don't think too much of one. 
> 
> There are mentions of suicide in the story (Fatal Frame is survival horror, after all) for those coming from the Tomorrow People side.

It was only slightly crowded at the McDonald's that Adam liked to go to. He had his choice of practically any restaurant in the world, but the Japanese took the concept of the American restaurant and applied it in a way that Adam liked, so he kept coming back to that particular place. Some of the locals looked askance at him, but most seemed to presume that he was a university student or an English teacher.

Telepathy made learning local languages infinitely easier, though Adam had been studying Japanese for quite a while. It wasn't something that came up in casual conversation, but he was interested in how Japanese worked as a language. If he'd been more dedicated to the study of languages, he'd have looked into majoring in linguistics at university, but he just wasn't.

He was hit in the head by something soft, and turned slightly to see what had happened. "Miu, don't throw things," a soft, harried voice commanded as he turned, and he saw a woman a few years older than he was, sitting with a little girl who was maybe ready for preschool. The woman looked up and addressed him. "I'm sorry. Miu, apologize to the man."

The little girl looked stubbornly at Adam and didn't say anything. The woman sighed and placed her hand on the girl's head, forcing her into a bow.

"I'm sorry," the little girl said, though it sounded less like she was sorry and more like she'd like to get back to her meal.

"It's all right," Adam said, bowing very slightly, and the woman blinked a little at his ease with Japanese. "I've got younger siblings at home." Sometimes he wondered if they'd break out like he did. He couldn't be the only person that had these powers.

"You speak Japanese very well." It was a variation of what he'd heard ever since he'd started teleporting to Japan to eat lunch.

"I've been studying it for years."

She summoned a slight smile and a nod and then looked at the little girl with an audible sigh. "Miu is my daughter, and she should be behaving better than this."

"Ah." Young mother, then. He wondered if she was married. She probably was - having children out of wedlock was heavily frowned upon by the Japanese.

"I guess if her father was still alive...."

A widow, then, at such a young age. "I think most kids her age are like that. It's nothing you did." He studied her, picking up some regret coming off of her; strong regret, and grief. Her daughter was engrossed in her meal, oblivious to the two of them.

"I have to wonder sometimes. She knows most of the kids around her have fathers and mothers, and she has nothing like that. I mean, there is a friend of mine who was also a friend of her father's, but she knows he's not her dad."

Adam nodded. It had to be tough for both the woman and her daughter. Miu was staring at an empty table, watching something that he couldn't see. Her mother caught Adam's glance, taking a look as well, and Adam saw her eyes widen and a glimpse in her mind of a spectral person that he couldn't see himself. He doubted she knew that she was broadcasting.

She turned Miu's head away from the specter at the other table and gave Adam an almost embarassed smile. He smiled back, as if he hadn't seen anything. As if there wasn't a ghost in the middle of an urban McDonald's.

"Do you have any other family?" he asked, aware that he might be prying a bit too much, but he had to wonder if she had any resources.

"Not much. Maybe my father's side, but we're not close. And for my mom's... people tend to die young in my family." There was an image of a young man slightly younger than she was disappearing behind a rockfall, a woman hung on a tree, the grief of a man as he stared at his wife's suicide note. A brother, a mother, great-grandparents.

He tried to project hope, and had to wonder if she could feel it. She was sensitive, but maybe not in the right way. Her daughter looked at him abruptly, frowning at him as if knowing what he was doing.

"Ah. Don't give up; I'm sure your daughter will turn out well." He gave her another smile. "I don't know if we'll ever meet again, but I'm Adam Newman."

"Miku Hinasaki." She'd thoughtfully rearranged her name to western order even though she hadn't had to. "Maybe we will."

There was nothing more to smile and bow a little. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't.

He just hoped that everything would turn out well.


End file.
